Grace's Suspicion
Chapter 06 - Grace's Suspicion
Grace kept financial records in the vineyard office behind the tasting room.
The room was narrow, crowded with clipboards, old harvest maps, and a printer that jammed whenever the weather changed.
She locked the door.
"I should have said something sooner."
Sophie sat beside Tyler at the metal desk.
Halloway stood near the filing shelves.
Grace opened a spreadsheet.
"These payments began as quarterly consulting fees."
The vendor name was Whitmore Strategic Partners.
Tyler read the account number.
"That's my dad's company."
"Yes."
"Did he work here?"
"Not in any way I could measure."
Grace scrolled.
The first payment was twelve thousand dollars.
Then twenty.
Then thirty-five.
By the previous year, the transfers reached seventy-five thousand per quarter.
"What did Grandma say?" Sophie asked.
"That she was resolving an old obligation."
"Those exact words?"
"Close."
Grace leaned against the desk.
"A few months before she died, she told me she'd finally dealt with an old problem."
Sophie remembered.
They had been standing near the fermentation tanks after a long day. Eleanor had wiped purple juice from her wrist and said, Some debts keep growing because people are afraid to name who owes whom.
Sophie had assumed she meant a supplier dispute.
"Did she authorize the transfers?"
"At first."
Grace opened scanned approvals.
Eleanor's signature appeared on early payments.
Later approvals carried only an electronic code.
"Who had the code?" Halloway asked.
"Eleanor. Me. Robert, during one systems review."
Grace looked at Tyler.
"He asked for temporary access because he said Eleanor wanted him to assess costs."
Tyler rubbed his jaw.
"When?"
"Two years ago."
The same period Robert began calling him weekly.
Taking him to casinos under the excuse of business trips.
Talking about Sophie's growing influence.
Sophie rubbed a cork between her fingers.
"Trace the account."
Grace handed over bank routing details.
Halloway said, "We need a forensic accountant."
"I know someone," Grace replied.
"Priya Nair."
The name carried confidence.
---
They drove into town that afternoon to meet Priya.
Her office occupied a converted train depot beside the county courthouse. The old ticket windows had been turned into glass-walled meeting rooms.
Priya wore red reading glasses and kept a sharpened pencil behind one ear.
She reviewed the transfers without speaking.
A small desk fan clicked each time it turned.
Finally, she looked at Tyler.
"Your father received these?"
"Yes."
"Did he report them as income?"
"I don't know."
"Did he perform services?"
"I don't know."
Priya turned to Grace.
"Any work product?"
"None."
"Meeting notes?"
"No."
"Travel records?"
"Not tied to projects."
Priya tapped the pencil against the paper.
"This may be disguised compensation, repayment of a private obligation, or diversion."
Tyler shifted.
"Could it be legitimate?"
"Anything can be legitimate with support."
She pointed to the blank invoice descriptions.
"This has none."
Sophie asked, "How far back can you trace?"
"Depends on records."
Grace placed the green ledger on the table.
Priya opened it.
Her expression sharpened.
"Eleanor kept parallel notes."
"She counted what Robert thought she wasn't counting," Sophie said.
Priya read several pages.
"She did more than count."
She showed them coded initials beside each transfer.
RB.
CN.
TR.
Grace recognized CN as cellar notes.
Sophie frowned.
"TR?"
Tyler stared at the page.
"Tyler risk."
No one spoke.
Priya circled the code.
"Eleanor may have tracked whether payments correlated with pressure involving Tyler."
Tyler looked toward the old station windows.
A freight train moved slowly along distant tracks.
"My dad started pushing me away from the vineyard two years ago."
Grace pulled another spreadsheet.
"That is when the transfer amounts increased."
The dates aligned almost perfectly.
Robert called Tyler after every quarterly payment.
Sometimes the same day.
The pattern did not prove motive.
It revealed rhythm.
Sophie turned the cork.
"What did he tell you?"
Tyler hesitated.
"That Sophie was taking over. That Eleanor would leave me nothing. That I needed to stop begging for a place here."
Grace closed her eyes briefly.
"He was preparing you."
"For what?"
Sophie looked at the transfer dates.
"To believe the altered will."
Tyler stood and walked to the window.
He pressed both hands against the sill.
Priya flipped deeper into the ledger.
"There's one more thing."
She pointed to a final note in Eleanor's handwriting.
Stop payment after Robert admits Tyler debt arrangement.
Tyler turned.
"What arrangement?"
Sophie watched his face.
He did not know.
Priya closed the ledger.
"We'll need bank subpoenas, tax returns, and device records."
Halloway nodded.
"Begin."
Tyler looked at the timeline on the table.
Robert's transfers.
Robert's calls.
Robert's story.
All beginning together.
The money and the manipulation had grown from the same root.
---
Grace printed the earliest transfer and pinned it beside Eleanor's harvest calendar.
The payment had cleared on the same day Robert took Tyler to his first private card room.
Tyler stared at both dates.
"He called it teaching me how money works."
Priya slid the page into a clear sleeve.
"Then we should document what the lesson cost."
May you like
Sophie watched Tyler place the copied page in his own folder.
He was beginning to build a record that did not depend on his father's explanation.
